Amusements

Welcome to this month’s Let’s Lunch! The delectable theme for March is dishes inspired by literature. For a compulsive reader like me, it was hard to know where to even start. I’ve been reading and dreaming about things my favorite characters ate since preschool. (Anyone else remember Bread and Jam for Frances? How about the scene in Little House in the Big Woods where Laura and her family make maple sugar candy by pouring syrup into the snow outside?)

I have a confession: I have never read the Twilight books. Or seen the movies. I am not on Team Edward, or even Team Jacob. For a girl who has watched a long parade of intermittently terrible and rapidly-canceled vampire shows (“Forever Knight,” anyone? “Kindred: The Embraced”? “Dracula: The Series”? I have watched them all), that’s pretty shocking. Everyone has seen/read Twilight. Or at least everyone not disqualified from reading foofy teenage romances by presence of excess testosterone.

I just can’t bring myself to do it. I know they are crazy popular. It’s like refusing to read Harry Potter. (Hey! I’ve read them! Don’t get excited!) All the same. I get the distinct impression from everything I’ve head that the books’ attitude toward women, relationships, sex, and what constitutes love is creeptastic. (Also, Robert Pattinson as a romantic lead makes me snicker, but that’s a separate problem.) I am pretty sure that they would annoy me, so I am just missing out on this massive cultural wave.

That’s not to say that I’m missing out on the current vampire mania entirely. There’s even more vampire fiction out there than there is talk about the Zombiepocalypse. The problem is, an awful lot of it is, well, trash. That doesn’t keep me from reading it (reference the above series that I really did watch anyway), but it gets a little tedious. Sex + scrappy heroine + gorgeous vampire = book sales, apparently. I like vampire books and films, but even I think the vampire thing has gone a little overboard.

Vampire lovers, don’t despair! I am here to hurl myself into the sea of mediocre vampire novels and throw out a few pearls for your delectation. read more »